When I approached the Ferris wheel on Santa Monica's pier, another intense round of fighting followed. Complementing the action is an electronic/rock soundtrack that ebbs and flows just like the action does.
The melee fighting gets really intense in such situations in Dead Island 2, and I was running back and forth, attacking, healing and dodging attacks in order to survive. Further on, I entered an arcade game room, where I got attacked by a bunch of zombies, including one that screamed electric pulses at me, slowing me down. I almost died fighting a zombie with exploding gas tanks on its back, before I managed to electrocute a couple of them when they were standing in a pool of water near a broken power cord. I encountered different zombie types as I made my way from the beach onto the Santa Monica Pier. The unique gory effects certainly add to the game's immersion. With this, "anatomically correct layers of skin, fat and muscle can be ripped away", revealing "breakable bones and internal organs that are individually destructible". I learned afterwards that I was observing the completely new FLESH gore technology at work. Another zombie lost a limb from a katana strike, so it fell down and kept crawling towards me. Closeup shots with my revolver decapitated them in a splurge of blood. When I hit them with my sledgehammer, this caused parts of their bloodied faces to come off. When they got close, I immediately noticed the detail in the zombies compared to the previous Dead Island games. These were still slow ones, allowing me to familiarise myself with the controls.
I decided to approach the first few zombies wandering around the beach. A flashlight again provides light in the darkness. A quick look into the UI showed me weapon crafting is back, as are character abilities and special perks for your weapons. Among my starting weapons were a katana sword, an assault rifle, a pair of wolverine-like claws that had electric sparks coming from them, a big sledgehammer that seemed to do fire damage, and a hefty revolver. The atmosphere was very dark, with fires and smoke visible in the distance. I was playing as a character named Amy, starting out on the sands of Santa Monica Beach at night, somewhere midway along the campaign's storyline. such as Bel Air, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica Beach, players will have to "find the slayer inside of you and perhaps also the zombie inside of you".Īfter that introduction, I started my 30 minute play-session at the event. Instead, you're part of a group who are not just surviving among the zombies, but are in fact thriving. Because when playing Dead Island 2, you won't be running away from the "Zompocalypse", the developers told me.
The six playable characters which will be in the game are immune to the virus and very determined to survive. that has been overrun by zombies, where the military has already given up and retreated. However, everything else about the game has been rebuilt from the ground up.ĭead Island 2 drops the player into a quarantined L.A. At the London event, the current development team from Dambuster Studios explained that they still really liked the idea of a "HellA" and therefore chose to stick to this idea. was announced to be the location for the new game a couple of years ago already, but obviously development halted before its completion. For example by adding batteries to a stick, to create an electrifying weapon.ĭead Island 2 carries over a lot of the core elements from the first Dead Island games, but in a completely new setting. There were many ways to kill zombies, courtesy of a large numbers of (melee) weapons lying around and the ability to craft new weapons yourself. The game followed a storyline with plenty of side quests, but also allowed for open exploration. Plus, I was able to play the game for about 30 minutes to get a look and feel of this upcoming zombie slaying game, taking place in a "bloody combat sandbox environment".įor those who remember, the original Dead Island game and its successor, Dead Island: Riptide, revolved around surviving a zombie apocalypse on a tropical island and zombie-killing as one of a number of characters. As has just been revealed during Gamescom's Opening Night Live show, Dead Island 2 is in fact almost here, and as part of an exclusive preview event in London earlier this month, I've learned all about the game's campaign mode, which is already completely finished, with development in its final stages. After years of silence, the Dead Island franchise is finally back from the dead.